


Gamefreaks

by kaybella



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Because of Reasons, Betting, BoNfire Week 2020, Board Games, Gen, Homesickness, NIle Freeman Feels, Nile Freeman Needs a Hug, POV Nile Freeman, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship Book of Nile, Quynh also needs a hug, Team Bonding, Team as Family, also no exile, no beta we die like the old guard, the author doesnt know how to play half these games and is sorry if that shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaybella/pseuds/kaybella
Summary: “What about games, Joe? You didn’t say anything about that when we talked before."Nile trailed off as she noticed the room had grown quiet.  For a moment she worried that she had stumbled onto another Booker Thing and the rest of the night would be spent talking around his absence but-“Really Joe? What were you two talking about exactly?”Nile tried her best to suppress her flinch of surprise as Andy’s voice came from above
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker - Relationship, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	Gamefreaks

**Author's Note:**

> BoNFire Week Day 1: Dongzhi + Saturnalia/ Reunions and Revelry  
> I don't know if board games count as revelry, but there are reunions too!  
> This is barely getting in under the BoNFire Week Day 1 umbrella so this is un-betaed cuz I'm determined to beat this dead line. Feel free to let me know if I missed anything. (I'm So Sorry)  
> <3  
> oh also uhhhhhh, thisisthefirstthingivepostedanythinganywhereintenyears

When Nile asked Joe about the sort of things they did to pass the time, she wasn't too surprised by the any of what he told her:  
“Oh you know, whatever's around, museums, beaches, libraries," Nile made a skeptical tongue pop. "Of course, you could spend hours in any library worth its salt, what kind of libraries have you been to? Anyways no point in not trying a bit of everything right?” He grinned sharply at her as he got back to his feet and extended a hand to her. “Not that you’ll be up for too much if you keep going like this.” Nile huffed and knocked his hand aside climbing back to her feet and reaching for the [nabboot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahtib) next to her. “Wanna bet on that, Habibi?” she snarked as she rolled her neck and waited for him to come at her.

Weeks later on an evening after a full and tiring day of working on marksmanship with Nicky while Andy was in the kitchen clearing up after dinner since Joe had cooked, something occurred to her as she scrolled through her phone planning to work her way through a few levels of Tetris.

“What about games, Joe? You didn’t say anything about that when we talked before about ways to like, kill time and all, but there’s a perfect number of us for a game night... ”

She trailed off as she noticed the room had grown quiet. Nicky had gone as still as if he was in a nest waiting for a target, Joe was looking towards the kitchen as if a bear might run out at them at any moment and the kitchen had gone silent except for the sound of running water. For a moment she worried that she had stumbled onto another Booker Thing and the rest of the night would be spent talking around his absence but-

“Really Joe? What were you two talking about exactly?”  
She tried her best to suppress her flinch of surprise as Andy’s voice came from above and directly behind her, though she had no illusions about Andromache missing the motion.

Across the small sitting room Joe was flushed and looking shamefaced as Nicky disentangled their legs on the couch and sat up and hissed, "[ _Non l'hai fatto, vero? Sarebbe basso anche per te. _](https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=it&tl=en&text=Non%20l%27hai%20fatto%2C%20vero%3F%20Sarebbe%20basso%20anche%20per%20te.&op=translate)”

Nile’s Italian was still a work in progress but the tone was unmistakable. Andy had moved around the armchair Nile was slung across to perch herself on the coffee table across from the couple and Nile had the increasingly familiar sense that she was missing out on something that was going to be rather dangerous (at least by human standards) or very fun (by immortal standards). Based on Andromache’s grin at least, (Joe and Nicky were speaking too rapidly for even her try interpreting anymore and it did not look like Joe was enjoying himself) Nile hoped it wouldn’t be _too much_ of the former.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Uno

  
Andromache got first pick for game night, since apparently she would have won their bet if Joe had not withheld information in, “a filthy attempt to manipulate rules that the rest of us have been playing honestly by since the sun still revolved around Earth.” She chose Scrabble, which Nile liked the sound of thinking that it would be a good way to flex the language skills she was working on. Based on the groaning from Nicky, it was clear she would press her preternatural advantage, but that didn’t matter in the end.

The afternoon before Game Night she stalked into the sunroom room of Joe and Nicky’s home in Malta with a thunderous expression and 2 silken looking bags that were bulging along with 3 that looked considerably more deflated.

“Someone's removed all of the Germanic, Cyrillic, Skolotoi, Hiragana, and Tiếng Việt tiles.”

Nile’s eyes widened and she poked her face around the canvas that she’d been hidden behind. Joe was already defending himself from her unspoken accusation, when Nicky rapped on the doorframe. He was leaning in the arch of the door looking way too satisfied.  
“That was me. Nile still hasn't mastered Arabic, she hasn't any background with the Cyrillic alphabet, hasn't started learning Hiragana and you’ve been withholding in her Sanskrit and Farsi lessons, so I don’t know what you expect her to do with Skolotoi”

Andy rounded on him, though his posture didn’t change at all and Nile locked eyes with Joe at the easel across from her. He tossed her a wink and then leapt to his husband’s (and Nile’s) defense.

That night after the plates had been abandoned in the kitchen sink, the four of them sat around the table as Nicky dealt out Uno cards. Andy was still grumbling that the best way to learn was under pressure and the competitive nature of Scrabble would have been perfect but Nile, knew to take an out when she was given one and agreed that playing in Italian would be enough practice for her. She’d also shot an email to Copley asking to get her backdoor access to [DLIFLC](https://www.dliflc.edu/) and [GLOSS,](https://gloss.dliflc.edu/) she didn't think Andy would be swayed again next time.

75 minutes, 2 drawn knives, an overturned table and many glorious additions to Nile’s lexicon of Italian swear words later, Nile was sitting next to Joe behind a ludicrous hand of 29 cards and Andy was making tea for Nicky, though it probably would be unwise to drink it. Nile was definitely on Andy’s side this time.  
Nile apparently surprised them all when she sunk the carbon fiber commando knife dead center in front of him, but they closed ranks. House rules over the internet, every time. Stacking cards was a go and Nile was fucked.

Nicky did commend her aim though, so that was something

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Monopoly

  
Nile wasn’t unhappy about having Booker back with the team. Having someone who’s life experience was all firmly in the Modern era was nice, as was having someone who empathized with her bouts of homesickness and the insomnia that was apparently a side effect of the end of the dreams about Quynh. And of course Booker being _with_ the team meant that she wasn't dreaming of Quynh drowning or worse Quynh drowning Booker and Booker, haggard and broken, letting her do it. Anything was better than those.

But now more than ever, she was not convinced that he was done self flagellating and he had decided to drag her into it.

“You can't be serious about this? This game has never done anything but make people want to commit murder. Haven't you died enough lately?”

Booker acknowledged her last comment with a soft flinch and a less than convincing glare but that was more than she could say for her previous attempts at talking him out of this disaster.

“I know how Monopoly works. Everyone here knows how Monopoly works. No one is going to be thrilled about tonight to begin with, might as well give them something to be mad about, non?”

Nile was wondering if it might be prudent to wear a bulletproof vest tonight, just in case.

Nicky managed to make pouring wine aggressive and if the atmosphere hadn't been so tense she might have congratulated him or asked for lessons. As it was she snagged the scottie dog and her glass and said a prayer for minimal bloodshed. Nile had decided to go without the vest, but still made sure not to wear anything she wouldn't mind having to burn later.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Spades

  
Nile liked her odds here. The cheating was inevitable but she knew she was the only person with the full set of rules and the team had made too much noise about house rules 3 months ago to not play by them.  
Joe was awful with numbers, Quynh was learning fresh and Booker still owed her from the Monopoly debacle. If Andy stayed distracted by helping Quynh, then she only had to worry about Nicky and she was pretty sure he still had a little sister shaped soft spot for her. She wasn’t sure if that would survive the night but she was willing to take the chance

Nile hadn’t finished explaining the rules before Andy spoke up “So, like Whist then?”  
“‘Scuse me?” Nile already didn’t like the way that the team was moving around the table. Joe and Nicky were speaking with their eyebrows and Quynh was enjoying watching Andromache, which Nile was beginning to recognize as a hallmark of incoming chaos or ratcheting sexual tension, and next to her Bookers posture was doing something that she didn’t have a name for outside of the cultural lexicon of Jeff Goldblum and The Dread Pirate Roberts.

“The card game, it's just Whist with a few changes, and before that it was Ruff,” Quynh made a sound of recognition and Andy was smiling at her now. Nile wanted to bang her head against the table because of course Andy knew some older version of the game.

She turned to Joe who was now leaning back in his chair, arms draped over Nicky and Quynh’s shoulders, he shrugged at her, “We called it Shelem.”

Nile groaned and let her head loll down over the chair back. After a 5 second pity party, she pulled it together and faced the frenzy of sharks she had apparently been adopted by. In the past 11 months she’d started to pick up on a thing or two and She still had one advantage

“Well, shit. Even then, My Night, My Pick, My Rules. And if y’all all know the basics, then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to pick up things as we go.”

The odds had changed but they hadn’t gone too bad...

Nicky was nowhere near anything like a gun, and no one but Quynh was armed.

Booker still owed her and he proved on Monopoly night that could palm a card or five and still had no sense of self preservation.

Her t-shirt was black, her sports bra was raggedy, laundry day was tomorrow anyways and Freeman family rules had always been the type to twist depending on who called the shots.

Nicky’s eyes narrowed next to her and Andromache’s jaw set. Nile handed the second deck to Booker to shuffle as she cut the deck in her own hands. No one objected and She squared up.

“I deal”

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Knucklebones

  
Nile was used to shacks, squats, caves, tents, and condemned buildings by now. Nile had seen her own insides twice in the past year and also had the surreal experiences of healing around a pole of bamboo and regrowing two fingers. But apparently she still could be squeamish about things.

“Do you even remember whose knucklebones these are?” Quynh was rolling a set of silver plated bones between her hands. She smiled fondly down at them after hearing Nile’s question.  
“I do not recall his name, no… But I remember his face and how cruel he was.” She looked back up at Nile and there was a distance in her eye’s that she was used to seeing in Andy by now, but on Quynh it looked victorious instead of melancholy.

“He was a very bad man who had very good luck, at least until he met Andromache and I. His bones brought me good luck ever since.” Her face darkened slightly “It's a pity I left them here.”  
Nile didn’t know quite what to say.  
Quynh had come a long way from her rage and obsession with death and drowning and vengeance, but these moments were still unnerving. The combination of the age and sheer rage that she contained made for what was frankly a pants-shittingly terrifying thousand yard stare.

“Yes well that is behind us now, isn't it. You said you know this game?” Quynh pulled herself back from what was probably the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. She and Nile were alone in a house straddling a river in Nakai–Nam Theun National Preserve. Based on the furnishings it belonged to Andromache, but apart from the necessary parts of modern life all of the possessions in it we’re far too old to be a residence. It was more like a shrine. Or at least it had been. The guard had been there for a month, going through mostly Quynh's but some of Andromache's things and making the place livable. Quynh quite understandably wanted to rest for a while and was insisting that they did it with her.

“Yeah or at least something like it. We call it jacks.” Nile settled into a chair as Quynh spread the bones out in a pattern in front of herself. “We used a bouncy ball, something rubber to...”

Quynh selected a slightly pointed bone, and threw it in the air. Viper fast her left hand shot out grabbing all ten remaining bones in a zig-zagging pattern. Then she caught the last bone out of the air, point downward between her pinky and ring fingers. It couldn’t have taken more than 3 seconds. Nile had barely finished inhaling after cutting her sentence off.

“This is what we’re playing tonight, [em gái ](https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=en&tl=vi&text=sister&op=translate)I thought you might like to practice?” Quynh grinned as Nile slid down to the floor across from her.

“That sounds like a plan.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Poker

  
Nile bowed out as soon as Joe announced his pick. She’d never had a poker face and If she’d learned anything so far it was that these were gamblers of a different caliber.

The team was lying low outside of Bestobe after a mission gone ass over teakettle in California. Coke mansions, car chases, helicopters, the whole deal. Nile was pretty sure that this was Copley’s version of putting them in time out, but the oldest members of the team definitely hadn’t gotten that message. Andromache had found a farm? In any case Andy had gotten them horses and after a day spent teaching Nile to ride, they had spent more time out in the flat land riding than in the safehouse.

Personally Nile had liked being in the States, it was nice to feel close to home and after a year of transience being surrounded by American accents had been a comfort.

Nile passed through the tiny kitchen and the poker game on her way to the backdoor, laughing at Andy’s half hearted attempts to keep Nicky and Quynh away from her winnings so far.

Nile sat on the backstairs dangling the book in her hands between her knees, letting it fall shut. She had been dead for a year now. And she was in the ass end of Kazakhstan, with a bunch of immortal gambling addicts. And back home, she wasn't sure if her mother had gotten out of bed. When her dad died, the year anniversary had been the only time she’d seen her mother, grieving since the funeral. Nile had pushed open the bedroom door and-

“Are you gonna be alright?” The back door swung inward to reveal Joe and Booker, who sat on either side of her.

“Yeah I’m fine it's just….” Nile wiped her face.

“It's been a year,” Booker finished.

She exhaled and drew in a deep breath, “Yeah” There was moment of silence and from either side of her

“Rummy?” Joe brandished another card deck  
“Drink?” Booker offered his flask. Nile waved Booker away with a laugh.

“What happened to Poker Night?” she asked them already shifting back to make between them on the small porch.

“Folded,” Joe said, shuffling

“Went broke,” Booker shrugged.

Nile snorted “Sure then.”

Joe dealt the cards out in relative silence. They could hear the rising and falling sound of the other 3 inside and the ground birds calling out in the fields. They were well into the game when, drawing and discarding, when Booker spoke up again.

“The first one is the hardest, but it does get easier” Joe snorted and Nile looked at him incredulously.

  
“I know, I know” he groused “But it's true. Because next year, you’ll have this one under your belt.” Nile bit her lip and tried to push away the heat behind her eyes. She didn’t trust herself to speak just yet so she nudged Joe and indicated it was his turn. Nile felt like she was looking past her cards but it was that or breakdown. Instead of going to draw, Joe set down his hand and pulled her into a hug resting his chin on the top of her head, and Nile let herself sob.

When Nile had cried herself out, she shifted a bit away from Joe but stayed close. As they resumed their game Booker nudged his flask towards her again and this time she took it.

“I thought you were going to stop drinking,” Nile prodded at him, unscrewing the top.

“I did,” Booker drew. Nile paused and took a sip expecting the burn of liquor but instead

“You poured wine in a flask?” Nile said flatly.

“You don't drink brown liquor,” he shrugged, “And it looked like you might want a drink.”

“I thought Nicky might shoot him,” Joe chuckled, and Booker laid out the last cards in his hand.

Nile and Joe both started railing at him for taking advantage of her emotional distress but she let Joe do the majority of the work. She took out her phone to check the time, if it was 12:30 in the morning where she was, then it was just after Lunch in Chicago. Even if her mother hadn’t been able to get out of bed today, by now Indy would have gone to check on her. She wouldn’t be grieving alone. As Nile listened to Joe scolding Booker “for being callous and insensitive to Nile’s plight” she took another drink.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Scrabble, Revisited

  
Nile knew as soon as she entered the kitchen how the day was going to go. There were 5 bulging bags on the table and Andy was sitting behind them.

“You’re not gonna sit there all day are you?” Nile asked cautiously as she moved towards the fridge.

  
“Of course not, but you wake up first.”

“And you’re waiting for me in the dark like a villain because…” Nile had no idea where this was going and wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

“500 local that you don't score above 400 tonight.” Nile froze where she was putting together her pre-run milkshake.

“Really?” Nile said, turning to look at her. Andy said nothing but raised an eyebrow that clearly said I’m waiting.

“Shouldn't I get a chance to hear the rules or something first, what dictionary do you even use,” Nile made herself comfortable since this might take a bit.

“Standard, for each language. I even picked up a new English one just for you,” Andromache was smirking with her entire face but not her mouth somehow and it seemed unfair to Nile.

“800 that there’s a score over ⅔ the points of yours,” Nile shot back, and now Andy’s mouth was smiling too.

“Done.”

“Why exactly did this have to happen while we were the only ones awake?” It occurred to Nile that she probably should have started with that but she was still thrown by having to interact with anyone this early. Andy shrugged as she made to get up and go back to her bedroom,

“Because _they'll_ all be betting on us."

That evening in the dining room, when Nile finally got to see all the various tiles, she thought for a minute that she may have been a bit too hasty raising the stakes for herself. There were definitely more letters than she had even seen in her life and some of the tiles were definitely handmade. The board was four times the size of a usual one though thankfully that was the only difference about it.

“How many languages are we playing in?” Nile asked Nicky who was setting up bowls of snacks in strategic places. All the chairs in the room had been shifted so the six of them could move around the game board freely and a mismatch of small portable tables, pillars, and something that Nile was positive was actually a drum for each of them to keep their racks and refreshments on.

“There’s no limit on that actually,” Booker called from where he was sprawled across a chair at angle to the main table, “If it's in the dictionaries, it's fair game.”  
,  
“Seven alphabets though, Latin, Cyrillic, Germanic, Arabic, Tiếng Việt, Hiragana, and Skoloti, all amounts have been adjusted to roughly match up with English usage and so on,” Joe chipped in.

“And it has to be in a dictionary!” Nicky threw in from the kitchen. “No _“accepted slang”_ bullshit this time.” He walked back into the room looking between Joe and Andy accusingly.

“Whatever phonetic is used when a tile is placed is what you have to use for intersecting alphabets,” Andy added. She was watching Nile, like competitive prey. Nile was starting to think this might be a test.

“What about dictionary.com?” Nile hazarded, hoping to secure an exception to the general house rules over internet clause early. Everyone looked to Andy who shrugged, “If you think it’ll help, sure.”

“It’s a real dictionary, yes?” Nicky was clearly suspicious and Nile braced herself for what was definitely going to be a shitton of rules lawyering. Nile pulled up the website and handed Nicky her phone.

“Multi-lingual and it should take care of any out-of-date dictionaries too,” Nile explained. Joe perked up next to her. “ I take it you’re our ref?,” she quipped. Nicky nodded without looking away from the phone, where he was clearly perusing the site for a reason to say no.

Nicky handed the phone back to Nile with a begrudging look on his face. _”[Non vedo alcun motivo per non farlo](https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=en&tl=it&text=Non%20vedo%20alcun%20motivo%20per%20non%20farlo&op=translate)”_” he scowled.

Nile made sure that Booker and Quynh were between her and Andy so she could hopefully get a bit of warning when she went in for the kill. She waited for a while before anything happened to give her hope in her strategy . It was promising when Andy combined alphabets for multiple words. She and Quynh we’re the only ones using the Skoloti tiles, though Nicky had used a few to complete something that must have been an inside joke because it had Quynh in peals of laughter and the other three eldest looking at her with joy written all over them. Nile was pleased to get away with ‘yeet’ when Booker finally gave her the in she needed by laying a line of Python for a triple word score and Nicky allowed it without too much push back from Andromache.

Nile waited a few more rounds to go for it and then she went for it, had to combine a suspect bit of Arabic and she was very glad that whoever had made the Cyrillic and Latin tiles had used a san serif font. When it was Booker’s turn he choked on his drink, but was able to pass it off as a cough well enough. The look he gave her afterwards was nothing short of gleeful, and Nile was glad that this would definitely be entertaining for everyone else even if it didn't work out. Quynh looked at her word with confusion but didn’t say anything, so it was Andy’s turn when she blurted, “You've got to be kidding right?”

“What do you mean,” Nile replied innocently  
.  
“A shrug emoji?” Andy didn't look concerned, just amused.

Quynh spoke up from Andromache’s shoulder where she, along with everyone else had come closer. “I don't see anything, it didn't make any sense to me.”

Booker was laughing openly “It's a very new thing ma choupette maybe once you feel comfortable using more than one remote…” Quynh punched his arm and Andy threw a piece of chocolate at him, probably more for calling her wife “his little cabbage” more than anything.

“It's actually an Emoticon,” Nile drew Andy’s attention back to the board where she used a bunch of L tiles and and Arabic [Taa](https://image.shutterstock.com/image-vector/arabic-alphabets-english-pronunciation-260nw-553574464.jpg) to lay out the smiling emoticon

“You can't ‘well actually’ your way through this, internet is not a language”

Nile rolled her eyes at the irony before she spoke. “It's not internet , it’s Emoticon, and a key signifier of a language is when two speakers can understand something that an outgroup can’t recognize as a familiar system; you and Quynh just proved that point.”

“Just because it’s defined in an online dictionary does not make it a word, these sorts of things have to be agreed upon,” Andy was exasperated now. Had she really not expected at least a decent attempt from Nile? Or maybe she had misunderstood Nile’s change to the terms.

Nile looked at Nicky expectantly, who looked somewhere between cowed and fascinated

“It's actually the #1 dictionary resource worldwide and credited by both Oxford and Merriam-Webster,” His voice didn’t waver but his tone was waiting for an explosion.

“There’s no rule against borrowing sounds if something runs out, why should this be any different,” Nile reminded Andy, who had done that earlier in the game despite no such scarcity of ‘ee’ sounds in any language on the table.

The two of them were both standing, facing each other on either side of the table. Andy was standing with her hands on her hips, the look on her face combining with her posture to forcefully remind Nile of mother when teenagers acted out in the salon.

Meanwhile Nile was using every bit of retail service training to keep all her posture non aggressive, and her tone in the range of would you like me to call a manager for you and I’m so sorry would you like me to scan it again. Because if Nile had read the room right, she should have the back up to get away with this. Booker was holding a[ bowl of popcorn to his chest and he definitely knew what he was doing](https://giphy.com/gifs/michael-jackson-comments-popcorn-pUeXcg80cO8I8/embed) based on how he made sure to catch her eye while he did it.

“I’m just saying Andy, I don't see how it's any different from hieroglyphs or Quynh combining Việt with Sanskrit 2 turns ago.” Nile smarmed, sugar-sweet. “Do you have something against hieroglyphs?”

Andy was already arguing with Nicky, while Joe and Booker were already rearranging their trays.

Nile’s job was done at the very, least she thought sitting back down. That would even up the stakes

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the BoN group chat for the idea and I apologize for the Google Translate Italian. <3


End file.
